Archive for the ‘Repair the planet’ Category
Mini-diy: Homemade beads from electrical cables
I recently found about 40 meters of electrical cables in the trash at work. It’s threaded with 4-7 strands of solid core wire which I needed for a DIY project (to be revealed soon), and I ended up with quite alot of white plastic tubing that I really didn’t want to throw out.
So I simply cut them up into beads, and mixed them into our little art supply box.
If life deals you an excess of electrical cables…
… then upcycle them into lemonade! No, beads! These are telephone wires I believe.
Cut with a sharp knife, as smooth and straight as possible
Just takes a few seconds
Mixed in with storebought plastic beads
My kids seem to never tire of making necklaces. I’m looking forward to seeing them incorporate some free, upcycled, environmentally friendly beads as well.
Reuse, resist!
DIY: How-to repair a broken iPhone 3G glass front panel for about $24
Want to find out how to repair / replace the glass front panel on your broken iPhone 3G? Read my complete tutorial to learn how.
Skateistan
Find a way to support or duplicate this! I used to skate when I was a kid, and loved it. It just brings a gigantic smile to my face seing these Afghan kids playing. Read more about it at Skateistan.org
New York Times:
CNN
Reuters
Straight into the sun
I took a nice little evening trip in my kayak yesterday (my fourth trip ever, I’m a total newbie). Launched from the nearest beach, just a kilometer from my house, and headed straight out to sea, towards the sun as it was setting, then turning around as it went down, catching the breeze on my back. Perhaps I should have just kept going? How far is it to Island?
I’ve decided to start bringing my trusty garbage picker with me on my trips. On my last outing, I saw lots of little pieces of plastic on the shoreline, just out of reach. It is a bit of a hassle getting in and out of the kayak, so a mechanical grip like the one in the picture above is a must.
Oh, and I might add that I started beach-combing / beach-cleaning last year, after finding the 46000 art project. 46000 being the number of plastic artifacts floating pr 1 mile of ocean! Isn’t that just crazy? What the hell are we doing to our planet?
Happily I didn’t find any floating debris on this trip, not even along the shoreline (I found one lonely red plastic cup).
But the situation on the beach where I launched and landed was different. There was plenty of junk, leftovers from a hot and beautiful day: Ice cream wrappers, empties, potatochip packets, etc. I am actually more than a little dissapointed that my neighbours are such litterbugs, I believed them to be better than this. To me, throwing garbage in nature is simply unthinkable, and I really feel that such behaviour is a sign of the fall of man. If you ever see me litter, then please shoot me!
Weekend project: Honey table
Honey Table Step 1
I salvaged this table from a dumpster. It’s really sturdy, made with solid pine. The table surface has lots of dents, so the first step is to sand it down.
Honey Table Step 2
After sanding it down I cut off pieces of a block of solid bees wax I bought a while back for creating candles, and melted it on a glass yar in a water bath in a casserole. I then poured the melted wax onto the table, and quickly dragged it out using a rag (actually my sons worn out swim trunks, everything can be reused!).I have of course never tried anything like this before, so I was not totally shocked when the wax solidified quicker than I expected.But experimentation is the mother of invention, so out came the hot air gun!
Honey Table Step 3
My son helping me to remelt the wax. He also cut up more pieces of wax that we placed straight onto the table.The wax melts fast, and it is important to not warm it up too much because it can realease harmful gases. I kept my hand near(ish) the air gun to make sure the temerature didn’t get too high.The wax should be layed on in a very thin layer, and I used a rag to massage it into the wood. If you lay it on too thick it will look white, and the table top feels rather sticky.My plan was to polish it as well, but I will wait a little bit to see how the wax reacts over time.A learning experience!
Honey Table – A great way to attract bees
A funny effect of polishing furniture with pure bees wax is that it actually attracts bees. It didn’t take long before there where 5 or 6 bees flying around, looking very exited and confused.When the wax is hot it smells fantastic, a strong smell of honey, and if I where a bee I would probably think there was a party going on :)I had to take a little break for while, as the bees got a little bit to close for my comfort, and finished up in a hurry.I will probably have to redo this table in a few months, but it will have to do for now.
Upcycled Eco Warriors
This is a good project to do with kids. Just start gathering bits and pieces of junk in a box, or clean out a few drawers, and you soon have enough raw material to create your own little eco warrior tribe!
Any material can be used. On the creature above we have a wine cork body, milk bottle cap feet, Elton John glasses made from a piece of balsa from a broken 3d puzzle, some feathers, a thumbtack nose, and eyes made from nuts. Oh, and the mouth was cut from a newspaper.
Pensilsharpeners for a better planet
If you have kids then you probably have a drawer full of pens and pencils, some good, some broken. In our house there are pencils spread out EVERYWHERE, I find a few every time we clean the house, and in the weirdest of places. I usually just dump them in this drawer, and pull it out whenever the kids want to draw.
But one day when I was home taking care of my daughter who had the flue, I decided to take stock, sort the broken from the usable, and sharpen them all.
I found some empty tomato cans to put them in, and sorted the pencils after their color family.
And lo and behold, would you believe that my three kids has kept this simple system in order for well over a month now! I’m so impressed with them!
More pictures after the break:
Repairing a broken cake mixer
Well, SOMEBODY has to! :) This is part of my new little project: Repairing things for me and for others. It is so easy to just throw stuff away when they no longer work, and often to expensive to take them to a repair shop, so I thought I would do my part for our planet by repairing as many things as I can.
Check out my other repairs on Flickr.
Melissa capacity 230! (Repairing a broken mixer)
Cool name :)
Let there be cake! This is a cake mixer, probably from the eighties, that belonged to my wife’s grandmother. It has been used to mix batter and cream for thousands of cakes, and it deserve better than to be landfilled.So what is wrong with it? It suddenly stopped, after making some VERY "interesting" noises. Probably from overheating, because if we let it cool down the motor starts again, for a short while, then stops again.It’s HAMMER… no, screwdriver time!
My favorite moment! (Repairing a broken mixer)
I opened it up, and found that the fan that blows heat away from the motor was a little hacked up. It seems like something has gotten in there and made quite a mess.Eighter that or there has been a gradual buildup of crap in there.I love taking things apart, and just looking around for a moment to see how it is made. Electronics still feels a little bit like magic to me.
Messed up fan blades. (Repairing a broken mixer)
The fan blades are really chopped up!I used a sharp knife to trim down the fan blades a little, trying to make them as smooth as possible.
Crud! (Repairing a broken mixer)
There seem to have been some "crud-buildup" inside the tightfitting fan housing. Scraped it as clean and smooth as I could.Put it all together again, cleaned up the outside of the mixer with soap and water and put it all back together again.Good as new, and ready for many years of cake making!As Marie Antoinette said it so apptly when the citizens complained that there was no bread to eat: "Let them eat cake".
